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Foundations of Mac OS X Leopard Security

Fred — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:49:10 +0000

“jsuda writes “At least a half-dozen times in the book ‘Foundations of Mac OS X Leopard Security’ the authors state that there is a misconception that the Macintosh computer is immune from security problems. That allegation may explain why there are very few books published (and nearly none in recent years) about security for the Mac. This book is meant to change all that. The authors acknowledge that the Mac OS X software has had little of the security problem …”
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Best Way To Store Digital Video For 20 Years

Fred — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:49:09 +0000

“An anonymous reader writes “My kid is now 1 year old and I already have 100G of digital video (stored on DVDs, DVD quality) and photos. How should I store it so that it’s still readable 10 to 20 years from now? Will DVDs stil be around, and readable, 10 years from now? Should I plan for technology changes every 5 to 10 years (DVD- Blue-ray- whatever)? Is optical storage better, or should I try to use hard drives (making …”
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Fastest-Ever Flashgun Captures Image of Light Wave

Fred — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:02:36 +0000

“loconet writes to tell us that a team of researchers have created the shortest-ever flash of light. Weighing in at just 80 attoseconds, this flash has already been used to capture an image of a laser pulse and could possibly be used in the future to capture the electron movement around large atoms. Read more of this story at Slashdot.”
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FISA Bill Vote Today, With Telco Immunity

Fred — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:31:08 +0000

“Bimo_Dude writes “Today (June 20), Steny Hoyer is bringing to the House floor the latest FISA bill (PDF), which includes retroactive immunity for the telcos. The bill also is very weak on judicial review, allowing the telcos to use a letter from the president as a ‘get out of liability free’ card. Here are comments from the EFF. Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, describes the effect of the immunity clause this way: ‘So all the Attorney General has to do …”
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Bill Gates Reveals Secret of Microsoft’s Success

Fred — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:16:08 +0000

“Hugh Pickens writes “Bill Gates, in a interview with the BBC, revealed the secret of Microsoft’s success: ‘Most of our competitors were very poorly run. They did not understand how to bring in people with business experience and people with engineering experience and put them together,’ said Gates. ‘They did not think about software in this broad way. They did not think about tools or efficiency. They would therefore do one product, but would not renew it to get it …”
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Visualizing Open Source Contributions

Fred — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:13:12 +0000

“An anonymous reader writes “A student at UC Davis has created some stunning visualizations of open source software contributions, including Eclipse, Python, Apache httpd and Postgres. From the website: “This visualization, called code_swarm, shows the history of commits in a software project. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to the code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. Both developers and files are represented as moving elements. When a developer commits a file, it lights …”
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No Right to Privacy When Your Computer Is Repaired

Fred — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:30:40 +0000

“Billosaur writes “ZDNet’s Police Blotter bring us the interesting story of a Pennsylvania man who brought his computer into Circuit City to have a DVD burner installed on his computer and wound up being arrested for having child pornography on his hard drive. Circuit City employees discovered the child pornography while perusing Kenneth Sodomsky’s hard drive for files to test the burner, then proceeded to call the police, who arrested Sodomsky and confiscated the computer. Sodomsky’s lawyer argued in court …”
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US To Extinguish (Most) Incandescent Bulb Sales By 2012

Fred — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:30:39 +0000

“Engadget has noted a report in the New York Times that that the US has “passed a law barring stores from selling incandescent light bulbs after 2012. ‘Course, the EU and Australia have already decided to ditch the inefficient devices in the not-too-distant future, but a new energy bill signed into law this week throws the US into the aforementioned group. Better grab a pack of the current bulbs while you still can soon you’ll be holding a sliver of …”
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PC Mag Slams Cheap Wal-Mart Linux Desktop

Fred — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:30:38 +0000

“An anonymous reader writes “PC Magazine reviews the $200 Linux desktop wonder sold by Wal-Mart. This desktop sold out quickly and has been cited as proof that consumers are tired of the Windows tax and ready for Linux. Not so according to PC Magazine, which gave the gPC a 1.5 star rating.” Previous discussions we’ve had about system reviews were realistic but not quite so harsh; is this just nitpicking or is the ‘shiny’ starting to wear off of the …”
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Is Apple Killing Linux on the Desktop?

Fred — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:30:37 +0000

“Domains May Disappear writes “Chris Howard has an interesting commentary at Apple Matters on recent trends in OS market share that says that while OS X has seen continual growth, from 4.21% in Jan 2006 to 7.31% in December 2007 at the same time, Linux’s percentage has risen from only 0.29% to 0.63%. The reasons? ‘Apple has Microsoft Office, Linux doesn’t; Apple has Adobe Creative Suite, Linux doesn’t; Apple has easily accessed and easy to use service and support, Linux …”
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